Stan’s Obligatory Blog

This week we heard that the Big Boy statue in front of their Downey restaurant was mangled in a car crash, the restaurant painted him green and put some foam brains spilling out of his broken head. So that was the ride destination for this Sunday. We also had heard yesterday that the Columbia space museum in Downey was moving a full-sized model of the Space Shuttle for display at the museum. So we figured we’d go by there and see if it was parked there.

The route was our standard route for doing south to Downey. We stopped briefly at the oldest operating McDonald’s. They have a little museum there about the history of the company, and also, they have bathrooms. Then we went a bit farther south to the Columbia museum, but there was no sign of the shuttle model. Then we went for snacks at 3rd St Coffee in downtown Downey. Then straight home, basically by the same route we took to get there.

43 miles.

Route map and elevations profile

It’s been about a month since we went to see the Childless Cat Ladies Art Project in Burbank, so I thought we should go back and see if they’d added more to it. So that was the ride today, along with a plan to go through Griffith Park and see where the city closed off a stretch of Griffith Park Blvd to cars.

When we got there, we saw that there were indeed a few new pieces up on the fence, including a kitty asking not to be eaten. Heh.

There’s still about a month to go before the election, so I think we’ll have to go back one more time

43 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

46 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

A few days ago, there was an item on the local TV news about an artist in Burbank who decided to make a pop-up art project dedicated to the ‘Childless Cat Ladies’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlZhvjMUw10

So, of course my instant thought was, “we need to go see this!” So that was the bike club ride for today.

It was a very nice day for riding. The heat wave of the last few weeks had broken, and I actually needed a little Hoover Blanket under my jersey to be warm when we started out. Nice problem to have in August.

Route map and elevation profile

The big entertainment news this week was that Norman Lear died. He was a major force in TV back in the 1970s, so I thought a visit to the TV Hall of Fame in North Hollywood would be a good ride for the bike club this week.

We rode out there by a somewhat roundabout way. We stopped for snacks at Priscilla’s in Toluca Lake, and then rode the the TV Academy building in NoHo. It’s a testament to Norman Lear’s influence that Archie and Edith Bunker are the statues in the center of the garden there. Norman Lear is one of the busts of famous producers and other TV luminaries, and even Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television.

46 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

A couple weeks ago, the Saturday Foothill group did the ride to see the Brady Bunch house. On the way there, I saw that someone had recreated the Holodeck 9 control panels in North Hollywood Park. This had happened before, back in 2020. So today’s ride was to go there and see if they had made all four panels again and how they were different.

We rode out out usual route to Burbank and then took the Chandler bike trail over to North Hollywood. We had snacks and drinks at Groundwork Coffee, and then we rode to North Hollywood Park. And four of the irrigation control boxes had new stickers on them with holodeck controls. One panel had a list of available simulations to run, which were all based on movie storylines. Another showed the bounds of the simulation, along with a warning that the simulation might be erratic outside those bounds. All in all, it was pretty entertaining.

Riding home through Toluca Lake, we heard some very loud crashing noises coming from the 134 freeway. We pulled over on a side street with an overpass, and we saw that there had just been a multi-car crash on the freeway. Yikes.

45 miles

Route map and elevation profile

Every year since 2007, we’ve made a point to ride out to Culver City to visit Bela Lugosi’s grave for Halloween. This was one of the first ‘theme’ rides I came up with. We call the route “Down for the Count”. So that was the plan for today.

A few weeks ago, we did a ride to the California Science Center to see the Space Shuttle solid rocket motors being delivered. When we were riding by there, I thought we should take a short side trip to see them, since they are big enough that they wont fit into any of the existing buildings there. So we rode into the park and saw the nose cones for the solid rockets, as well as the solid rocket bodies lined up next to the main building.

From there, we picked up the bike lane that parallels the Metro Expo Line for the ride out to Culver City. Next to the La Cienega station, we saw the (W)rapper building. It’s an unusual and distinctive bit of architecture.

When we got to the cemetery, we rode up and over the hill to get to the Grotto. Somebody comes and decorates Bela Lugosi’s grave for Halloween every year, and this year was a good one. The decorations make it very easy to find.

After the cemetery, we went to Grand Casino Bakery for snacks and drinks. Then we rode back to downtown. When I got to downtown, a few of us decided to bail out and take Metro Rail home for the last bit.

42 miles, plus two more to get home from the Metro station

Route map and elevation profile

The Saturday Foothill Cycle rides go lots of different places, but I make a point to go along when they are doing one of my rides. Today, it was the ride to Studio City to see the house from “The Brady Bunch”. We’ve gone to see this several times over the years, and today we even got a little bonus sightseeing. We rode out to North Hollywood for snacks and drinks at Groundwork Coffee. After we left there, we went by the park that was turned into Holodeck 9 a few years ago. As we were riding by, I saw that someone, most likely the same person as before, had made new holodeck control panels for the park. It made for an entertaining ride.

45 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Back in 2012, one of our regular Sunday bike club rides went to see the space shuttle Endeavor as it was being moved to the California Science Center. And in 2016, we rode to Exposition Park to see the external fuel tank for the shuttle, on display next to the building where the shuttle is. I recently read that they have started construction of the new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, where the shuttle will be on display in the full vertical ‘stack’, with two solid rocket boosters, the external tank, and the orbiter, all mounted as if ready for launch. So today, the bike club did a special ride to Exposition Park to see the two solid rockets, which were on a pair of very large trucks for transport into the museum.

30 miles.

Route map and elevation profile

Last Monday, I read that John Waters was going to be getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I watched the livestream of the unveiling ceremony, and then I said, “I know where the Sunday bike club ride is going this week…”

We rode out by our usual route across Highland Park and Silver Lake to get to Hollywood. We stopped briefly to see Carol Burnett’s star, just because there’s a funny story associated with it. (you can read it here) John Waters’ star itself is in front of Larry Edmunds Bookshop at 6644 Hollywood Blvd. As we were about to cross the street to get there, I noticed that Leonard Nimoy’s star is right there on the corner of Hollywood and Cherokee Ave. We’ve been out to visit his grave at Hillside Memorial in Culver City before.

Leaving Hollywood, we rode to Larchmont Village and had snacks at Noah’s Bagels. Then we headed home by way of downtown L.A. and the Arroyo Seco.

43 miles.

Route map and elevation profile